Lead IC Design Engineer jobs in United States
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Foundation ยท 16 hours ago

Lead IC Design Engineer

positionSan Francisco Bay Area
timeFull-time
remoteOnsite
senioritySenior Level, Lead/Staff
money$80K/yr - $1,000K/yr
date8+ years exp

Foundation is developing the future of general purpose robotics with the goal to address the labor shortage. They are seeking a Lead IC Design Engineer to evaluate and design custom inference chips for robotic workloads, while also leading the technical and business feasibility assessments.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)Machine LearningRobotics
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H1B Sponsor Likelynote
Hiring Manager
Jordi Vidal
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Responsibilities

Leading a structured evaluation of technical and business feasibility for a custom inference chip tailored to robotic workloads
Analyzing current bottlenecks in robotic inference pipelines and comparing off-the-shelf vs. custom alternatives
Developing models for performance, cost, scalability, power, and area to inform build-vs-buy decisions
Defining high-level chip architecture optimized for low-latency, real-time systems (e.g., CNNs, transformers, sensor fusion)
Evaluating tradeoffs in dataflow, memory hierarchy, interconnects, and hardware/software interfaces
Guiding RTL prototyping, simulation, and early design exploration
Coordinating with external vendors, foundries, or design houses as needed
Delivering a comprehensive report with recommendations, including technical/financial analysis and risk/benefit tradeoffs
Presenting findings to leadership and, if approved, leading early custom IC design and project planning

Qualification

AI accelerators designHardware/software co-designRTL designDigital IC designLow-power systems optimizationEmbedded compute tradeoffsExperience in roboticsCollaboration with vendorsM.S.Ph.D. in EELeadership skillsCommunication skills

Required

Proven track record in designing or evaluating AI accelerators, neural network inference engines, or signal processing hardware, with a history of delivering end-to-end projects
Deep expertise in hardware/software co-design, embedded compute tradeoffs, and optimizing for real-time, low-power systems
Hands-on experience with RTL design (Verilog/VHDL/SystemVerilog), simulation, synthesis tools, and ASIC/FPGA development
Ability to model and evaluate AI inference workloads, including performance bottlenecks and architectural tradeoffs
Strong leadership and communication skills to translate complex technical insights into actionable executive recommendations
Experience in robotics, autonomous systems, edge computing, or similar high-stakes environments where scrappiness was key to success
Familiarity with low-power design, mixed-signal integration, hardware security, chip bring-up, verification, and validation
Prior collaboration with foundries, ASIC vendors, or design houses in resource-constrained settings
M.S. or Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field
8+ years of experience in digital IC design, SoC architecture, or ASIC/FPGA development, with demonstrated ability to own projects autonomously

Benefits

Health
Vision
Dental
401k

Company

Foundation

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Foundation is developing the future of general purpose robotics with the goal to address the labor shortage.
dateFounded in 2024
location
San Francisco, California, USA
people-size51-200 employees
web-link
https://foundation.bot/

H1B Sponsorship

Foundation has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
Represents job field similar to this job
Trends of Total Sponsorships
2024 (1)
2023 (1)
2020 (1)

Funding

Current Stage
Growth Stage
Total Funding
unknown
2024-08-22Pre Seed
Company data provided by crunchbase